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Sandeep Dahiya is an emerging writer, poet and blogger. Taking inspiration from his see-saw existence drawn between a traditional Haryanvi village and metropolitan Delhi, he mediates to carve out a reliable identity from the two opposing worlds. He holds a decade of editorial experience with reputed academic publishers in the country. His works include: Footsteps Lost (Minerva Press); Verses from the Land of Farmers’ Messiah (ABC Publishers); A Half House (Invincible Publishers); Beyond and Beneath (Invincible Publishers); Chimp, Champ and Chops (Invincible Publishers); Lost in Red Mist (Invincible Publishers).

Sandeep Dahiya grew up at a village in Sonipat district of Haryana. Having his education in a village school and graduating from a small town college, he just did marginally better than other students and dreamt big. Moving further he completed M Sc in Ecology and Environment, and Masters in Journalism and Mass Communication. His teachers at the small village school thought he could become an IAS officer. However, during summer vacations in Shimla, a lady official who decided the best travelogue prize for the camping students made a still better remark that he could write. He remembered it all the way while he tried his best for the IAS and the PCS.

Coming from that part of north Indian countryside, where literature will be the last thing on anybody’s mind, where agriculture is culture itself, where perhaps people would prefer a buffalo over a book, he tried to be the black sheep that is trying to get out of the herd to set its own offbeat course. Following a self-possessed and self-nourished dream comes with its own set of trials and tribulations. More than once he abandoned the dream of full time writing. Many a time he realised his limitations as a writer. Still many more times he felt himself a victim of the forces beyond his control. Having spent a decade in the editorial departments of academic publishers, he gets up again to try further and get a slippery foothold led by the anticipating whispers of the inherent voice.

He fought for the most prestigious civil services examination in India. Fought decently well also, given his own limitations and more importantly the literary limitations of the socio-cultural unit he came from in the village in Haryana. The harder he worked, the more distant became the goals. He saw the worst of politico-bureaucratic-judicial game. When he finally fell his inner voice told him, it is more on account of the system’s failure than his own. So he has sips of justice in the form of inner thumbs-up by his soul.

Every time he falls, deeper are the analytical impressions on the neurons of his brain; graver have been the bruises on heart. If nothing more, it gives him the mood and inclination to write. Churning out reflections and sentiments that life’s thousand catapults give to all of us uniquely, Sandeep Dahiya writes to basically satisfy the inner cravings, and more importantly to create scenes and visualisations for a better world both for himself and the larger cause of humanity.